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Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a countryon the Iberian Peninsula. Located in southwestern Europe, Portugal is thewesternmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean tothe west and south and by Spain to the north and east. The Atlanticarchipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are also part of Portugal. The climatecan be classified as Mediterranean. Portugal is one of the warmest Europeancountries, the annual temperature averages in mainland Portugal are 13 °C (55°F) in the north and 18 °C (64 °F) in the south and it is over 20 °C (68°F) onthe warmest spots, like south coast of Madeira island.
Portugal is a developed country, has a high HumanDevelopment Index and is among the world's 20 highest rated countries in termsof quality of life, although having the lowest GDP per capita of WesternEuropean countries. The population of Portugal, the first unifiednational-state in Western Europe, has been extremely homogeneous for most ofits history. A single religion and a single language have contributed to thisethnic and national unity. The great majority of Portuguese are Roman Catholic,though a large percentage consider themselves non-practicing, especially inurban lands. By 2007, Portugal had 10,617,575 inhabitants of whom about 332,137were legal immigrants. Portugal, long a country of emigration, has now become acountry of net immigration, and not just from the last Indian, African, andAsian overseas territories. Since the 1990s, along with a boom in construction,several new waves of Ukrainian, Brazilian, people from the former Portuguesecolonies in Africa and other Africans have settled in the country. Thosecommunities currently make up the largest groups of immigrants in Portugal. Theofficial language of Portugal is the Portuguese, which, with over 210 millionof native speakers, is the fifth most spoken language in the world.
Portugal has become a diversified and increasinglyservice-based economy since joining the European Community in 1986. Over thepast two decades, successive governments have privatized many state-controlledfirms and liberalized key areas of the economy, including the financial andtelecommunications sectors. The country qualified for the European MonetaryUnion (EMU) in 1998 and began circulating the euro on 1 January 2002 along with11 other EU member economies. Economic growth had been above the EU average formuch of the 1990s, but fell back in 2001-07. Portugal has been increasinglyovershadowed by lower-cost producers in Central Europe and Asia as a target forforeign direct investment. The budget deficit surged to an all-time high of 6%of GDP in 2005, but the government reduced the deficit to 2.6% in 2007 - a yearahead of Portugal's targeted schedule. Research about standard of living by theEconomist Intelligence Unit's quality of life survey places Portugal as thecountry with the 19th-best quality of life in the world, ahead of othereconomically and technologically advanced countries like France, Germany, the UnitedKingdom and South Korea. This is despite the fact that Portugal has the lowestper capita GDP in Western Europe and among the lowest in the European Union. Theobvious choice for real estate investments in Portugal for both short-termrentals and capital appreciation would appear to be golf property either on theAlgarve or Silver Coast, as this is where the majority of the country'ssuccessful tourist and golf industry is located.
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